


Funny How The World Works

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: A good dosage of h/c, But essentially just plot-less friendship feels, Canon Disabled Character, Daniel's POV, Gen, Peggysous heavily implied but not overt, This friendship gives me strength, head injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 11:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: He’d come back from the war to dreary New York without a leg or a girl or a best friend or a real job. In those early days, he hadn’t imagined anything close to what he was experiencing right then. “Funny how the world works, huh?”





	Funny How The World Works

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



> To the fandom goddess, Sholio. Just a small treat to attempt to say thank you for all you do and all you write. You're amazing.

Daniel was very suddenly aware that there were sounds around him; noises that surged forward and receded almost like a wave breaking on the shore. He wondered, vaguely, what he was doing on the beach when it was so dark he couldn’t see anything around him. His thoughts swirled around that concept for a while, and then some part of his brain rudely interrupted to tell him he was, in fact, lying on his back.

“…should just kill her now…trouble…worth it.”

Oh. The noises were voices, not waves.  

“Boss...He wants…see her die…swimming… Want to…mad?”

“No, but…if she escapes...Boss more mad…her buddies coming…just be done with it.”

“Then tie her tighter so…”

Some vague part of Daniel’s brain was trying to tell him what the men were saying was incredibly important. But no part of his brain was telling him _why_ it was important, who those men were or what they were going on about. And it was much nicer to just lie there and amuse himself with how his thoughts scattered like dropped sewing pins. All over the floor; steel and little coloured heads that could be chased for hours and not found. They always ended up in your foot, weeks later, he remembered.

“What about him?”

“Not gonna be a problem. Cortez… too hard. He’s…out cold.”

A grunt and then something nudged Daniel in the side, hard. The motion rocked his body, and pain sliced through him from so many multiple somewheres his pin-scattered thoughts couldn’t quite keep up. The voices started up again, but he couldn’t catch words while he was trying to stop his head exploding.

His head. The pain faded, and took with it some of the lingering stupidity, giving him snatches of lucidity as parts of his body continued to throb. He had a head wound. He was lying somewhere with men talking above him and he couldn’t see. Had they blindfolded him? He tried to blink and found that his eyes were already closed. Forcing them open was a monumental task, but he’d fought that battle enough times after he’d lost his leg to know how to win it. There was something blurred above him that appeared to be moving – nothing in his befuddled brain could tell him what it was, so he stopped trying to figure it out and turned his attention to the sounds around him.

A scuffling, dragging noise. Car doors opening and closing. Somebody saying something a ways off. Daniel strained to hear the conversation, and a moment later a shot fired and entered straight into his head, followed by another and another and another –

“…cut that out!”

It took the noises stopping for Daniel to realise that it was not gunfire, and that the agony was from the noise and not from an actual bullet. He felt like he wanted to pass out or throw up or both, but gritted his teeth and tried to roll his eyes to see what was happening.

“…need to make sure…”

“We got…just…in the car! Just drop it!”

Two figures, blurry and swirling all over the place, stood a few feet away. One seemed to slap the other somewhere before walking away. The second picked something up and swung it against whatever he was standing next to. The resounding clang was the gunshot of pain that Daniel had experienced before.

“…not kidding! Leave…ass…car…”

The spinning man dropped the object and loped off, leaving Daniel fighting the urge to close his eyes as the world swam sickeningly around him. He swallowed against the building nausea and used every bit of willpower he had to raise his hand from where it lay beside him to his head. Flopping around like a dead fish, his hand searched for a head wound. Nothing indicated he’d probed an open injury, but when his hand flopped onto his chest again, out of energy as well as coordination, it was stained with fresh blood.

That was all Daniel had in him; the spinning world spun into blackness.

Pain jerked him back into consciousness, and instinct made him want to come up fighting whatever was attacking him. His arm sort of half rose and slapped around, connecting weakly with something his eyes were trying to focus on.

“Sousa. Hey! _Hey_.” The thing in front of him was a man. A man who grabbed the arm trying to grab him and held on. “What….?” Daniel swallowed the nausea, blinking the man – oh, it was Jack! – into more focus. Jack was speaking, but his words washed right over Daniel in senseless waves against the shore. Jack’s wobbly face became grim, and he let go of Daniel’s arm so he could grip his face with both hands. That was an odd thing to do. Daniel made a noise of protest. “Sousa. You with me? You in there? Where’s Carter? Sousa, where’s Peggy?”

Peggy. PeggyPeggyPeggyPeggyPeggy. “Car,” he gasped as the realisation hit, too slow to be of any use. “Took her… they…men…”

“Tanner and his men?” Daniel tried to remember who that was, and could not – could do nothing but stare at Jack as confusion overcame everything else. Jack sighed. “Shit. Okay. Which way did the car go?” he spoke extra clearly and slowly.

“What?”

“The car with Peggy in it. Which way did it go, Sousa?”

The confusion evaporated and was replaced with terror. Peggy was in a car. The men had taken her. “Jack,” he gasped, reaching for him and hitting one of the blurry images that turned out not to be the real Jack. “Jack, they got her.”

“Yeah, I know. Which way did -?”

“They’re…going to shoot her. The boss. Going to shoot her. Wants to make sure she’s dead.”

Jack swore again, this time louder. He placed his hands on Daniel’s shoulders and pushed down, giving Daniel a point of anchoring. “Sousa, _which way_ did the car go?”

Shakily, Daniel pointed in the direction the blurry car had disappeared. Jack said something else he missed and then got to his feet, leaving Daniel to stare at the same blurry, moving thing he vaguely remembered from earlier. He blinked a few times. It was a white ceiling. He was staring at a ceiling. And he’d let Peggy be taken to her death.

He aligned his elbows at his sides and then pushed with all his strength, managing to lift his torso off the ground. The movement pulled at a hundred small hurts, but it was his sudden status of being vertical that did him in. Somehow, he managed to roll onto his side before he threw up, head splitting and vision growing dark around the edges. He gasped in air, desperately trying to cling to consciousness and lucidity, determined to get Peggy back before she was killed. It took an undetermined amount of time for him to be able to lift his head, and once he did he had to contend with both the stabbing pain and throbbing pressure of his head at once. A few dizzy sweeps of the floor made him finally locate his crutch a little ways off, lying beside one of the giant columns that steadied the structure they were in.

There was no place for pride when Peggy’s life was in danger – Daniel did an approximation of the leopard crawl toward his crutch, thoughts still scattered, body and head still in agony, determination still overriding everything else. The metal of the crutch was dented in places, and Daniel couldn’t recall what had happened to do such damage. Leaving the unimportant detail for later, he used the crutch to shove himself into a seated position, back leaning against the pillar. Once the world had stopped trying to fade to black around him, he shakily took a few tries to slip his arm into the cuff of his crutch and reached down for –

Nothing. Daniel’s fingers searched for the familiar wooden grip and met only air for a few moments, before they brushed the stump of what had once been a working leg. No, no, that wasn’t right – what had once been a working crutch handle. But, really, his first muddled thought may as well have been correct; the crutch was useless broken. And he was useless without the crutch.

Daniel took his arm out of the cuff and instead reached down for the point where the top of the crutch narrowed and became the single steel bar. Between that support and the pillar behind him, he managed to get himself to his feet. Vertigo hit like a physical blow, and he sagged against the column, teeth grit, fingers scrambling for something other than smooth concrete to hold on to so he did not fall. His stomach rolled and his head pounded, but he forced his eyes open anyway and gripped the crutch, feeling metal bite into his skin. The angle would be all wrong – the grip was too low and he’d have to stoop – but he was determined to make it, anyway.

He managed three halting, uncoordinated steps before he found himself on his hands and knees, brain too stupefied to tell him what was hurting or how he’d fallen. Taking heaving breaths, Daniel reached for the crutch again and attempted to levy himself upright. Footsteps clipped briskly against the concrete floor in his direction.

“Sousa, what the hell?”

Jack’s hands landed on him, and Daniel furiously batted them away. Peggy was out there. Peggy was going to be shot. He had to reach her. Like _hell_ was Thompson keeping him away. He managed halfway upright before he collapsed forward again, and this time Jack was there to catch him.

“You’re being _ridiculous_ ,” Jack snapped at him. “You can’t even – ”

Daniel weakly pushed him away again, tossed the crutch to the side and began crawling. To hell with Thompson watching. To hell with pride. Peggy. He’d let her be taken. He had to get her back. If he didn’t, she’d _die_. He’d do worse things than crawl to her to make sure she lived. After a beat of silence, Jack began swearing at him, easily catching up and halting his progress.

“Sousa – Hey!” He caught Daniel’s sad attempt at a punch. “You’re going the wrong way, idiot!” Jack yelled at him, and that _did_ manage to penetrate. Jack muttered something about _deserve each other_ before pulling the arm he still held over his shoulders. “Come on, Killer. If you insist on going to save her, at least let’s go the right way. And before the end of the year.”

Daniel felt too sick and confused and in pain by the time Jack had hauled him upright to even begin to think of a returning insult. After that, things got incredibly hazy, but he was almost sure that at one point his head had lolled onto Jack’s shoulder, and Jack hadn’t shoved him away, even when he’d been gasping for breath down Jack’s neck. There were other vague impressions and movements and half-words from Jack, but the next thing Daniel was truly aware of was the feeling of a rumbling car beneath him, and the press of cold glass against his temple. He stirred, lifting his head with effort, and saw he left a smear of red behind on the glass.

“You finally back, Sleeping Beauty?” Jack grumbled at him from the driver’s seat. When Daniel couldn’t find his tongue in time, Jack glanced at him with naked worry on his face. He quickly masked the expression. “Sousa, you idiot. You should be in a hospital, you know. Not coming along so you can get in the way.”

“I’m not,” Daniel managed, no heat in the slurred words.

Jack knew him well enough to know what he’d _wanted_ to say. “Oh, sure. You’re going to be a big help. Fainting all over the bad guys is a great rescue plan.”

Daniel tried to glare, but it hurt too much. “Peggy,” was all he said, and Jack sighed.

“Yeah. I know.”

Daniel leaned his throbbing head against the car window again and tried to swallow the steadily building nausea. How much time had passed? How far behind the goons who had taken Peggy were he and Jack? Was backup coming? Would they manage to save her before the boss shot her? What men were they, anyway? What case were they on – how did he and Peggy end up…wherever they had been? His memory was one gaping, dark hole of questions and anxiety.

The car jolted to a stop and Daniel opened his eyes, unsure of when he’d closed them. His fingers fumbled for the door handle, even though he could not see where they had stopped. Jack’s hand on his shoulder was like a vice.

“I can’t save her and you at the same time,” he snapped at Daniel. “Look, I know you want to save her but, damnit, Sousa, you’ve been unconscious more than not. You’re going to be a liability.” Daniel struggled to focus on Jack’s gaze. It was harder than it had been before. With a sense of crushing hopelessness, he nodded, regretting the action as it knifed pain through him. Jack’s hand on his shoulder, surprisingly, squeezed once before letting go. “I’ll bring her back,” Jack promised, before he vanished into the indiscriminate darkness outside the car.

A garbled, fearful voice whispered doubts even before the ringing left by the slamming door had faded. Daniel didn’t even know how Jack knew this was where Peggy had been taken, let alone how long she’d been missing for. He didn’t know Jack’s plan, or even if Jack _had_ a plan. He didn’t know who had Peggy and why. And, most importantly, the voice kept chasing through his confused thoughts back to one, poignant question: did he _really_ trust Jack Thompson _that_ much?

Hazy memories of Peggy and Jack through the years surfaced, battling with the confusion and the pain in his head, and Daniel let his eyes slide shut.

Yeah, he realised with sudden peace. Yeah, he really did trust Jack Thompson _that_ much.

Blackness slowly faded into blurry, confusing sights and sounds, and it took him a while to realise there were soft fingers on his face.

“Peg,” he croaked, hoping he wouldn’t throw up on her. All three of the blurry Peggys in front of him had bruises and cuts on their faces. His arm was several tonnes too heavy to reach up and brush the blood away.

“Hello, darling,” she said, softly, fingers still stroking his face but smile strangely brittle.

“Peg…you…okay…”

“Told you I’d get her,” Jack’s voice said from somewhere, even as Peggy tried to still Daniel.

He leaned into the warmth of Peggy’s fingers and let the world slip and slide around him. “Hmmm. Good,” he muttered.

***

Perhaps it was all in his head, but the new crutch felt odd under his hand; like a new pair of shoes that were somewhere on the line between unfamiliar and uncomfortable. But it held his weight, even with the added bag slung over his free shoulder and the added factor of his on-going unsteadiness. And, speaking of…

He’d managed to reach his porch before dizziness assaulted him out of nowhere, leaving him utterly disorientated and trying to dig his crutch into the ground so he didn’t fall. He stumbled despite his best efforts and felt the whole world spin sickeningly around him. A pair of arms caught him on either side, keeping him on his feet and holding him there while the dizziness slowly passed.

“Are you alright?” Peggy asked him, quietly, ducking her head in an attempt to meet his eyes as he stared at the porch floor.

He forced a smile. “Yeah. Sorry. Just…”

“The doctors said the spells should pass in about a week,” Peggy reminded him comfortingly, shifting closer to his side.

“How comforting that is,” Jack snorted, grabbing the bag from Daniel’s shoulder and adding it to the one he was already carrying. “’Yeah, your head is still screwed, but we’re pretty sure it will be okay after a week of swooning like a shocked maiden.’ They sure know how to sell themselves.” Jack pulled Daniel’s arm over his shoulder as Daniel watched Peggy shoot him an exasperated look. “Unlock the door, Marge. I got this.”

Peggy moved even closer to Daniel. “I am quite capable – ”

“He’s not going to love you more because you prove you can carry him inside,” Jack said, dryly, and Daniel felt unbidden shame curl in his gut. Peggy’s glare at Jack turned from irritated to sharp and dangerous, sensing that Thompson was skating along suddenly thin ice. “Besides, I _know_ how much shoulder wounds hurt. And we just got _away_ from the hospital – don’t want to have to go back.”

Daniel found Peggy’s ring and pinkie fingers and squeezed. She exhaled the sharp breath she’d taken and reluctantly moved from Daniel’s side, going instead to his front door while Jack continued to hold Daniel upright.

“I distinctly remember you telling me – on many, many occasions – that your wound barely hurt at all, Jack,” she shot back at him as she unlocked the door. “And your bullet didn’t just graze you as mine did me.”

Jack, of course, had a sharp reply ready and Daniel let their bickering wash over him as Jack hoisted him into the house. Somewhere along the line, Peggy and Jack’s arguing had become somewhat endearing. Almost soothing; their kind of normal. Probably around the same time the barbs he and Jack threw at each other had lost all their bite. It was funny how the world worked.

Daniel got deposited on the couch as the other two continued to snipe at each other, taking over his house as though it were their own space. Peggy had been there often enough to really know the place, and after a while she took pity on Jack opening several cupboards at random to find what he was looking for and started rooting things out for him, bantering back and forth with him as she did so.

They both arrived back in the sitting room with the case paperwork, hot beverages and some of Ana Jarvis’ best homemade cookies that Daniel had been given as a get well soon present. Peggy sat next to Daniel on the couch and handed him his coffee carefully before balancing paperwork on her lap and getting to work, interjecting her scrawling with mutters and snorts of disdain. Jack lounged in the armchair on Daniel’s other side and started asking Daniel questions, writing the answers down as Daniel was still unable to read or write without the words blurring beyond recognition.

“This is going to take an age,” Peggy groaned. “Honestly. They’ve already taken our statements. Why is there _this_ much to fill in?”

“Because you got yourself kidnapped; that’s an extra batch of paperwork than the usual case stuff,” Jack answered, still scrawling furiously.

“I managed to save myself quite well, thank you,” Peggy grumbled. “I should simply put that down. ‘Was taken. Saved self. Fit for active duty starting Monday according to doctors.’”

“Jack won’t sign anything if his name isn’t mentioned in the retelling,” Daniel teased.

“Fine. ‘Was taken. Saved self with help from Chief Thompson. Fit for active duty starting tomorrow.’”

Daniel and Jack both snorted, one in humour and the other in disbelief. Peggy rose to her feet and stretched. “Well, if I’m forced to sit here doing tedious jobs for hours then I am at least going to do so comfortably.”

“What, you want to – What are you doing?” Jack’s question turned slightly horrified as Peggy began to roll down her stockings.

“Have you ever worn women’s nylons, Jack?” Daniel wished he had a camera to take a photo of the expression on Jack’s face at _that_ question. “Exactly. They are cumbersome and not conducive to any kind of comfort.” Jack’s look turned into something one might wear when inspecting whether stale bread was still edible or not. Peggy caught it as she straightened up, dangling her stockings in hand. “Oh, honestly, Jack, they’re just a pair of _legs_. I’m not suddenly going to take off all my undergarments as well.”

“Please, please don’t,” Jack said at once. “What do you have to say about all this?” he demanded at Daniel as Peggy tossed her stockings aside and began unbuckling the fashionable but probably uncomfortable belt around her middle with her uninjured arm.

Daniel looked at him for a moment, trying not to look as amused as he felt. “I say that Peggy should feel as comfortable as she wants to. And,” he added, looking away from Jack to give them both some necessary space for the words that were to follow, “that sentiment goes for all present.”

He was already in a loose sweater and sweatpants, but Jack was dressed in his usual suit and tie, something Daniel knew from experience was not something conducive to comfort, either. Peggy met his eyes and they shared a secret, knowing smile before she flopped beside him on the couch and very obviously went back to writing. Jack did the same, and for a long time there was silence and pen scratching against paper and then, with a suddenness that startled Daniel, Jack rose and began ripping off his tie. It got tossed beside Peggy’s discarded stockings, and his jacket followed suit a moment later. With an almost _defiant_ look on his face, Jack unbuttoned some of the buttons on his shirt and then untucked it before falling back onto his armchair.

Daniel paid the price of a throbbing pressure in his head so he could lean his head back and hide his grin from Jack’s sight.

“All present, Sousa,” Jack said, attention apparently riveted on the paperwork in front of him. Daniel blinked and slowly, carefully turned his head in Jack’s direction. But Jack didn’t look at him.

“What?”

“You said it goes for all present. That includes you.”

For a long moment, Daniel was confused, watching Jack very, very pointedly look only at the papers in front of him. Acting, to the extreme, like he didn’t care at all about the outcome of his words; that he hadn’t thought about them; that they didn’t matter either way. But Daniel couldn’t understand what he was trying to cover up and brush off. He glanced at Peggy, who was still and watching him with a gentle, encouraging look that made him even more confused as to what subtle cue he was missing from the conversation. Because he _was_ already comfortable – was in very similar clothes as those he’d fall asleep in, except for –

His leg. _Oh_.

Daniel felt suddenly incredibly shy, darting his gaze between Peggy’s open, calculating look and Jack’s continued blatant ignoring. It would be wonderful to remove the prosthetic, as it usually was – a relief on his stump and on his torso where the support belts tended to dig in and constrict in certain positions. But… But while Peggy had seen him legless before, the closest Jack had come was in the hospital where the blankets had covered the very obvious signs of it. And he wasn’t sure if…

 _Do you really trust Thompson_ that _much_? The question rose from some place and time he could only vaguely remember; as hazy and untouchable as a dream. And the answer rose from the same place, but more firmly solid and real. _Yeah. Yeah, I really do_.

The clunk of his leg being dropped beside the couch mixed in with Peggy and Jack’s writing. A moment later, Jack asked him another question, calm as a cucumber. Peggy’s bare toes curled against his hip as she shifted into a more comfortable position. And Daniel took a deep breath, heart still beating a little faster than usual as different emotions chased around his chest, and answered Jack as though everything was still exactly the same as it had been.

Peggy was the one to actually get up and go and see if they had any viable options for dinner, but as soon as he’d won the argument with her Jack stood up as well, stretching. Daniel watched his eyes catch on the pile of discarded clothes, to which Daniel’s left sock and shoe had been added. Jack’s smile was softer than the sardonic one Daniel had half expected.

 “You ever think you’d see that sight, Sousa?” Jack asked, indicating Peggy’s strewn about stockings.

“Nope,” Daniel said, truthfully, looking not only at the stockings but Jack’s tie and then to his fake leg, sitting in the open for everybody to see. He’d come back from the war to dreary New York without a leg or a girl or a best friend or a real job. In those early days, he hadn’t imagined anything close to what he was experiencing right then. “Funny how the world works, huh?”

Jack gave him one of his startled, real smiles – the ones that reached his eyes and made them soft and human – and then grumbled something about _making sure Carter got the lunch order right_. As he left, he dodged the creaky space on the floor without thinking about it, and Daniel felt himself inexplicably grinning.


End file.
